On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
ney , but for whose temporal or spiritual interests little , until recently , has been seriously attempted by it . What a monstrous inconsistency , that a society should exact money to spread the gospel from the degradation of human beings ! Yet this it has done for one hundred and twenty years . To enlighten one portion of the heathen world , it has enslaved another ; to save one p ortion , it has been the voluntary means of destroying another ; for , in of
the opinion its members , the slaves not being converted are eternally lost . This iniquity has been honestly exposed in the Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter . Thereupon the wrath of the ghostly dealers in human flesh and blood was excited . They employed threats , they retained advocates , but all to no purpose . By this the matter was more agitated , and the iniquity more generally known , till at last the organs of the Church themselves that have a regard to character and consistency , avow their astonishment at the
continuance of such an absurdity , as a Christian society drawing part of its funds from slave labour . « ' We have , " says the Christian Observer , urged the subject in vain for several years ; it has now received a more full and public discussion , and must command the attention of the Society , of Parliament , arid of the country at large . " There are more iniquities in the Church than
the people dream of , but the time is arriving to draw aside the veil . The public mind will soon , we trust , be comparatively free to loot into abuses innumerable , both small and great , which require the day of reformation . It is no grateful , it is no lucrative , task to expose abuses , but a sense of duty will bear us up above these difficulties , and the readers of the Repository may be assured we will not fail to reveal the hidden things of darkness .
Are the principles of Nonconformity at present so well understood by Dissenters as they ought to be ? Are they taught by ministers , to the young of their flock , as extensively as they once were , and as from their importance they deserve to be ? Are not many , not to say the majority of Dissenters of the present day , Dissenters from habit rather than principle—rather because their fathers were so before them , than because they themselves are convinced of the necessity of Dissent ? These questions must , we fear , be
answered in the affirmative . We have been led to put them from reading " in the Leeds Mercury , for Feb . 21 , a letter of the Rev . Mr . Hamilton , of Leeds , in which occur the following words : — " When 1 recollect the learned and pious men who conceive Episcopacy a divine appointment , I would rather my tongue should cleave to the roof of my mouth than utter a word against them ; of many such I can never think but I am reproved and shamed by their holy example and faithful ministry . Long may thpy adorn
their present spheres . " Mr . Hamilton , we believe , belongs to the Independents ; and we know , and with pleasure allow , that they have , as a body , done much for the furtherance of religious liberty , which we consider as to no small extent identified with the progress of Dissent . But , however praiseworthy the body to which Mr . Hamilton belongs , that gentleman cannot shelter himself , nor do we believe he would wish to do so , under the cover of their merits . The tenor of the passage , we confess , greatly surprised us .
Mr . H . will not speak against Churchmen , because they are good men . Does he not know that every good Christian wars , not with men , but with principles ; and are principles to be screened from just and temperate animadversion because those who hold them are good men , or rather , because among those who hold them good men are to be found ? The admission of this would prove the impropriety of all discussion , for scarcely can the religious doctrine be named that has not been held by some professors of
Untitled Article
T 7 ie Watchman . 265
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), April 2, 1829, page 265, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2571/page/41/
-